In April 2012, The Economist ran a biting editorial arguing that, “[w]hen research is funded by the taxpayer or by charities, the results should be available to all without charge.” Academic journals, the magazine contended, were raking in huge profits by selling content that was supplied to them largely for free and in the process restricting public access to valuable research to just those willing to pay for subscriptions. The answer to this “absurd and unjust” situation, The Economist wrote, is “simple”: governments and foundations that fund research “should require that the results be made available free to the public.”

We at the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) have found that providing full public access to the research DOE funds is simple in principle and complex in practice. And reflecting on this 2012 editorial, we can say that a great deal of progress has been made toward reaching the goal of free public access it sets out. And much of that progress is due to hard collaborative work by both the government and publishers.

In the 1800s, the Brady Hot Springs geothermal fields were known as the “Springs of False Hope.” As pioneer wagon trains traveled across the northern Nevada desert on their way to California, their thirsty animals rushed to the springs only to find scalding 180° water and bare land. Additionally, the water was loaded with sodium chloride and boric acid.

Interferometers are investigative tools used in many fields in science and engineering. They work by merging two or more sources of light or other waves to create an interference pattern, which can be precisely measured and analyzed. Interferometers are making possible significant advances in scientific research. One of these advances is in astronomy, where laser interferometers are opening a new era in the exploration of the universe.

In 1972, a young Massachusetts Institute of Technology physics professor, Rainer Weiss, drew up a teaching exercise using a basic concept for an interferometer to detect gravitational waves. This work later became the blueprint for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), a national facility for gravitational wave research. LIGO is funded by the National Science Foundation and other public and private institutions.

Two solitons in the same medium. Image credit: Mathematics and Statistics at ScholarWorks @UMass Amherst (Open Access)

In 1834, naval engineer John Scott Russell was riding his horse along the Union Canal in the Scottish countryside when he made a mathematical discovery. As he subsequently described it in his “Report on Waves,” presented at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1844, Russell noticed a boat had stopped abruptly in the canal leaving the water in a state of violent agitation. A large solitary wave emerged from the front of the boat and rolled forward at about eight miles per hour without changing its shape or speed. He continued on his horse to follow the wave down the canal for nearly two miles until the wave became lost in the winding channel. Russell called this beautiful phenomenon the “wave of translation,” and it has become known as a solitary wave, or soliton.

James Van Allen’s space instrumentation innovations and his advocacy for Earth satellite planetary missions ensured his place among the early leaders of space exploration. After World War II, Van Allen begin his atmospheric research at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory. He went on to become the Regent Distinguished Professor and head of the University of Iowa (UI) Department of Physics and Astronomy. Drawing on his many talents, Van Allen made tremendous contributions to the field of planetary science throughout his career.

Van Allen used V-2 and Aerobee rockets to conduct high-altitude experiments, but the lift was limited. He devised a ‘rockoon,’ a rocket lifted by hot air balloons into the upper atmosphere where it was separated from the balloons and ignited to conduct cosmic-ray experiments. The rockoon, shown with Van Allen in the image above, achieved a higher altitude at a lower cost than ground-launched rockets. This research helped determine that energetic charged particles from the magnetosphere are a prime driver of auroras.